Blogging

I have been reading blogs & blogging for a few years now. It seems like just when you find a blog you like the author stops blogging due to some unforeseen circumstance. A friend of mine blogged weekly until she married. That was over two years ago and I haven't seen anything new on her blog. One of my favorite bloggers just announced he is taking a leave of absence from his blog as he has multiple career & family issues that take priority over his blog. He will leave his blog up but will not update it.

It is interesting what people will share randomly on a page posted in cyber space. The amount of detail used to describe deeply personal events & or impersonal & random activities, thoughts, confessions, and failures. It seems like blogging is the new way to have a deep heart to heart or self disclosure of some sort.

I am a firm believer that most people are not good at communicating and therefore prefer easier or less personal ways of getting ideas out. Therefore the use of blogging & texting. I know plenty of people who are excellent communicators and can self disclose anything but I also know many people who are not good at communicating or they are better at writing to describe a thought, idea, or event.

There was a point in time when I was in counseling and my therapist encouraged me to journal. He said it was like spitting. When you spit you expel saliva outside of yourself. When we spit we are expelling saliva which is water. But we never think of saliva as water. Anyone who is thirsty and wants to drink thinks of water. No one who is thirsty thinks of swallowing saliva. Getting emotions or thoughts outside of ourselves so we can see them takes on a similar dynamic.

Blogging can be used to relieve pain or even a catharsis of some sort. I remember my therapist talking about dealing with problems is about having coping mechanisms and tools to help one deal with issues. Journals have done this but so do blogs. We are able to get all that stuff out and in some way it helps people deal with life.

As I read other people's blogs and think about what they share I take a few moments to think about this blog. I don't know that I had a set goal or purpose as much as it was too share thoughts, reflections, and events in my daily life. I wonder how much more I could share but for whatever reason have not been willing to share?

Some days the silliness takes over

Last thursday I received a piece of spam email from a pottery company. It looked hooky and goofy and like the type of stuff that my Grandmother would buy. The more I looked at the spam I was upset that someone sent me unmanly non guyish spam and that just lead to me making fun of it. I started thinking about who it must have come from and I came up with an Amish Kid who is sexually ambiguous and was destined to become an interior designer. Then I'm thinking about what this kid must have experienced growing up and what his life was like...he always wanted to drive a pink buggy instead of a black one and his parents would not let him. He always wanted to go outside to pick flowers instead of go to church and his parents would not let him. He always wanted to stay inside and arrange furniture instead of work on the farm and his parents made him work outside on the farm. Poor kid ran away to a big city had some misadventures, maybe even did the Fantastic Mr Riley deal before being able to get into pottery and start his own business.

So this is all I could think about all day on Thursday & Friday. It was awful...I was tired and punchy and just wanted the week to be over.

Disappointing movie season

I have not been able to see many of the movies that came out this summer in the theater. Instead I waited until I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth pulled and rented many of them. Almost all of them were not great which was disappointing as I was hoping they would be okay or at least mildly amusing.

Some disappointments included:
Death at a Funeral - The original is hilarious!! The American remake was too rushed and seemed forced.

Date Night - I don't even remember most of the movie but that could have been because of all the percocet I was taking.

The Losers - good action & the dialogue was snappy but it was predictable and the story was not great.

Kick Ass - While insanely creative and original the story got lost trying to make fun of the super hero & violent film genre which was sad because a statement of some sort was forming but it fizzled.

Films that looked too pitiful to rent included: Killers, Hottub Time Machine, MacGruber, & CopOut.

I also watched the Wolfman which was decent I just can't get into the time period in which the story is set.

Oh well...hopefully there are better movies coming out later this year.

What I don't discuss very often

Baseball, wedgies, my secret love of sloppy joes, my fear of clowns...actually there are many things I do not discuss very often.

I don't blog much about dating. In part because a few dates may read my blog or friends of dates may read my blog. Until I am comfortable talking with a date I will always blog about them to random people I don't know surfing the internet who may stumble upon my blog which may discuss details of dates about people they do not know...that really isn't a reason. But I do error on the side privacy for reasons only God knows why.

I recently met a wonderful woman who I had a huge crush for and was very interested in getting to know. I have not had a crush in years. The sign you meet someone special is when they make you feel like how you felt as a kid when you had a crush on someone. The first time I met her we engaged in small talk and I did the ring check. At my age you have to check for a ring as many a nice woman are married (The good ones are usually taken).

The first time we met I did not see a ring. The second time we met I did see a ring, and a photo, and we had a discussion about her kids. Which were good signs that things were not going to work out between us.

I could not figure out why she was not wearing her wedding ring the first we met. I spoke with an older wiser woman who suggested that it is possible the ring was being cleaned by a professional cleaner which would explain why she was not wearing the ring. I then recieved a ten minute lecture about the importance of clean shiney wedding rings to a married woman (I am glad it was explained to me but I still do not get it).

Realistically there maybe even more reasons why she was not wearing her wedding ring (it was lost, they had a fight & she took it off, she may have a weird habit of not wearing it at work, etc., etc., etc.,). The lesson I learned is not only to do a wedding ring check once but multiple times. At least twice or until I see photos of the spouse and hear about children. Those facts clear up everything a wedding ring will clearly not uncover!

Photos from when I shaved off half my beard

So one day I thought it would be fun to shave half my face and leave the other half unshaved. I walked around the office all day walking back and forth around people to see if they would notice. Sadly most people did not notice. Many did not even notice when I faced them from the front where they could see both sides of my face (Which was really funny and provided hours of amusement all day). Above are the couple photos I took while shaving the night before. Enjoy

2010 Labor day weekend memories

Good labor day memory - Staring a job around Sloan's lake park. I have been dying to jog around on this park all summer.

Bad labor day memory - Tripping & falling about 1/6 of the way into my job around Sloan's lake park. I scraped up my hands & leg enough I needed to go home and clean it out with rubbing alcohol before passing out on the couch.

Good labor day memory - Finding a new customer for house sitting

Bad labor day memory - Leaving the lights on at home for two days and returning to find a light bulb that exploded over my bed. Now I have to throw out my favorite set of sheets!

Good labor day memory - Renting the Fantastic Mr. Fox

Bad labor day memory - Missing a fun discussion group because I was house sitting

Good labor day memory - Getting good picks in a fantasy football draft

Good labor day memory - Finding a couple cafe's & bakeries near one of my regular house sitting gigs.

Bad labor day memory - poor customer service at the new eateries

Good labor day memory - Enjoying lunch at St Marks

Bad labor day memory - I was working on a business plan while at St Marks and didn't get to sample more food or coffe

Fun work week

I work in an office spending a lot of time working with websites & advertizing vacancies at the college. I monitor positions open on our job site and make sure they are advertized on other job sites. I also make sure if a position has closed on our job site it is closed on other job sites. Basically I do alot of auditing and monitoring of our positions which at times is tedious and not very fun.

This week I spent two days out of the office and I enjoyed it! One day I was assisting our training team with a class as the team was short personnel. It was fun to meet new employees and help them with our check in process. Another day I was handing out Ice cream for our Chancellor's appreciation committee. Which also involved meeting students, faculty, and staff.

Both days were very rich for me. I do not get much interaction with people in my job so I enjoyed the diversions this week. I also viewed both occasions as opportunities to explore new activites & what I enjoyed about them. Maybe I need to sell Ice cream for a living or fill out paper work. Wait I already fill out paper work for a living...maybe I would look good in an ice cream truck.